June 2014 News: Business Lessons from Immigrants

I am so thrilled to have recently been featured in Forbes Magazine. Please enjoy this article excerpt.

Nadine Lajoie was not happy and had negative thoughts during her childhood in Quebec, Canada on a chicken farm and credits her profound success to “the stubbornness of an immigrant.” Her motto for living is “never give up.”

She bemoans the difficulty of making the legal move to the U.S. “Even if you have money, start a business and employ people, the requirements are really strict and bureaucracy is maximized,” she says. It took Nadine four years and two refusals to get her E-2 Immigration Visa to operate her business from within the U.S. “Now I understand why there are so many ‘illegals’ here,” she says.

Through her real estate business she has done 14 deals in three states and has provided jobs to more than 25 people so far. She credits her business success to a “champion mindset,” using the lessons she’d learned in music and sports. A former champion motorcycle road racer (at 180 mph), she developed what she now calls the “5 Secrets of a High Achiever”:

Focus,

Adrenaline,

Discipline,

Coaching and

Practice.

Upon her arrival to the U.S. in 2007, Nadine spoke little English, but attended the best conferences she could find to learn from successful real estate entrepreneurs. The concepts were daunting and the language barrier made her frustration much worse. She added two more traits to her arsenal: “Be stubborn and relentless.” Finally, a little success—then the RE crisis took her hard won strategies away. She managed to lose only $500, but then began a new set of challenges as it took six weeks to open a bank account; insurance companies turned her away and utility firms could not start services to her houses because she didn’t have a social security number, and she couldn’t obtain one without an immigration VISA, which required “a substantial amount of investment at risk that is already invested in the U.S. and has created jobs”…. All without a social security number? A veritable catch-22.

But true to her motto, Nadine has never given up. She became a millionaire at age 41 and has now appeared in USA Today, ABC, Fox and CBS Money Watch (among other programs) and is the author of Win The Race of Life. She has also proven irrefutably that raw stubbornness and force of will can be an invaluable trait.

You can read the full article that features other immigrant entrepreneurs here: ForbesArticle

If you want more tips and to take your complimentary "Quick Leadership Survey" to discover more about yourself, please visit and sign-up on our website: www.NadineCoaching.com

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